When Jane Fonda decided to go gray right before the Oscars, where she would present the award for best picture in what turned out to be a historic moment, her people called Jack Martin. The artist behind Jack Martin Salon in Tustin, California, is known for transforming clients’ gray or graying hair into something more than the sum of its parts. And to Fonda’s people, Martin said, “‘I am extremely busy.’”
“I’m not trying to show off,” he added. “It’s hard for me to cancel [on] anybody because most of my clients they come from different states and countries, and they put down a deposit to book me and they book flights and hotels. So it’s hard for me to do that to them unless I’m dying.”
Martin found a way to make it work for Fonda, a very special case. She came to his salon on his one day off, the Sunday prior to the Oscars. After a conversation about what she wanted, which was very specific and unlike the golden blonde that she had and hated—plus six or seven hours of work—she was transformed.
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One might project nerves onto the actor in this particular moment. Relenting to gray is a major change for most people, and most people aren’t debuting it on the Oscar stage in front of an audience of peers and the rest of the world. But by Martin’s estimation, Fonda was all calm and confidence. “She did not even look at the mirror to see what I was doing,” he said. In their time together, she ran Grace and Frankie lines. She read the newspaper. She wrote some of another book she’s working on. She never got nervous.
“She has almost 85% white-silver hair. Jane Fonda, she’s 82 years old, but her personality is like maybe 30 years old,” he said in an attempt to explain her preternatural ease with herself. “Very feminine at 82, and she loves to dress up. She loves to surprise people every once in a while with her new looks and new stuff. She wants to do it for the Oscars, like it’s a big change for the Oscars and then take it from there. She’s going to wear it all the time.”
He shared his trade secrets by offering step-by-step instructions over on his Instagram. But like a confident Fonda, he’s not worried about copycats or anything. “Let me tell you something: If you give your recipe to cook something to two people, they will never achieve the same exact dish,” he said. “Here is the formula. If you can achieve it, good for you, but you don’t have my hands. I don’t have your hands…. There is enough business for everybody and this is a new trend everybody loves to wear. Let them be good at it and let them make money and help other women.”
